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Sabeer Bhatia?s Jaxtr international calling service works on a new model; the challenge will be to monetise it.

The nature of the technology market is such that, if you really want to make large profits compared to your competitors, one relatively sure-fire way is to create your own niche; preferably, your own market, ? la Apple and the iPhone. Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail fame seems to have incorporated this strategy very early on. Take Hotmail itself. It was one of the first email services that allowed users to access it regardless of which computer they were using?earlier versions of email were bound to specific computers. This changed the way people and companies communicated, in both the personal and business spheres. Bhatia finally sold Hotmail to Microsoft for a reported $400 million. However, as Bhatia found in later ventures, simply creating a market or entering a nascent one was not a guarantee of profits. When he started JaxtrSMS, the service was like no other. While other internet-based messaging services allowed users to send messages for free, they were all bound by the fact that both users needed to have the relevant app loaded on their respective phones. JaxtrSMS bypassed this requirement, but still failed to make money.

Bhatia?s latest venture, of providing very cheap international calls, is yet again different from the usual services that do so. Matrix and its like provide SIM cards that can be used in a variety of countries. Bhatia?s venture, going under the Jaxtr brand, works in a different way. The person trying to make the international call instead calls a local Jaxtr number and enters the number he wants to call when prompted. The receiver gets a message providing a number they can call toll-free. Once the receiver has also called in, both parties can talk virtually free of cost?the only charges that are to apply are those charged by the service provider for a local call to Jaxtr. This removes the hassle of SIM cards, while vastly reducing costs at the same time as Jaxtr reportedly owns its own network. Bhatia?s created his niche, now he has to monetise it.

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First published on: 24-12-2012 at 01:35 IST
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